Rearview by Caitlyn O'Flaherty

I want to be a deer in a field.

I want to kiss your mouth like I see your hands

come from behind

to touch my ribs and then my stomach

in the mirror

so I know the doorknob is as far away as any

home we’ve ever come from. I want

to be a deer in a field and watch

us, running, free like rays free

like gravity free like fall,

it’s a season this

love, it’s a flooding in

my veins it’s a penetration, you

on me on sheets with creases

talking about years like moments

and moments like they’re permanent

like they freeze in headlights

like trembling hands are treble clefs

dividing the space between us into measures

and rests.

I want to stare at you across the table

because our elbows are touching

and we know that’s how you can tell

how deep inside someone you reach;

the creases in the map are wearing out and tearing.

There is no one who imprints on me

like you. I follow

bent, double yellow lines.

You take your shirt off in the car and

so I stand up and we tell ourselves that connections

are about letting go.

I see the horizon and the sea, you scream

it smells like honesty,

it smells like salt.

We wear our underwear while we burn

the poems that we wrote to each other.

I ask you if you wrote about the sun because

I didn’t but it started shining and

I had to squint. I touch your forearms

as if they are fragile since I can’t see you

any better than the seat or the windshield.

You ask me if I wrote about elephants,

so we talk about that for a while,

without ever really talking about it.

We take our shirts off in the car and drive faster than the signs.

I say “Let’s do this together.” You run

callused fingers through your hair

and pull.

You are the air that closes my eyes

the wind the sound of rushing

you are the anchor you are my hand

I turn it over

you are the wrinkles you are the hanger you are the windmill

the picture frame the smoking engine the bald man

who I will never meet

you are the vacancy sign you are the curb

you are the fire hydrant you are the toe truck

I am the rest stop you are asleep again.

This was never more than a poem,

caught on fire.

We are ashes,

dust, stained t-shirts in the wind on a highway,

I don’t remember which.

To read more of Caitlyn O'Flaherty's poetry go to depoetry.com.